Fury's Little Girl
by Thousandsmiles
Summary: Sort of a Natasha joining SHIELD story. Based off of Natasha and Fury's relationship in CATWS.


**Hey, so, I wrote this thing really based on Natasha's and Fury's relationship as show in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It'll probably continue up until Winter Soldier itself. Hope you guys like it and it's okay!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, Marvel does. **

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Sleep is elusive. And yet the nights are never ending. A hunt and chase and still her quarry and her prey eludes her as the ever-needed sleep. The irony is bitter. Natalya Romanova didn't know when it happened, when she first become aware that she wanted to be out of the control of the Red Room, that she didn't want to serve those ruling the motherland anymore. Which to say was strange and another bitter irony for she who read people like a book and took on roles as easily she put on clothes, that she didn't know herself, that she hadn't see it coming. She didn't know when it was that she became aware that she had been keeping a ledger, dripping red, and so sentimental, so weak for an assassin and a spy. But she wasn't that only. She was quite painfully, a human. A woman, broken and twisted like a bone that had healed wrong. And she wanted out. The pain had finally become too much and for the first time, she truly thought about leaving, about going. Ah, but another bitter irony. For she couldn't leave. She didn't know how to and still survive. Which lead to yet another irony as bitter as time because she was being hunted by a man for her deeds at the command of an organization she wanted nothing of but could not escape. Life, she summarized, was bitter and harsh. Not as if she hadn't known it, but everything comes into such sharp focus ad leaves a deeper imprint when you are going to die.

And she was going to, because she wasn't sure if she really wanted to win, to stay alive. Oh, she would fight, because she had been fighting for too long, lived through too much, to just give up. But deep inside, she lacked conviction and she knew she was going to die because of it….

She hadn't expected him to see through her. To see her, as he so clearly did. Although truth be told she should have, because how else could he have kept up with her if he was not like-minded? But he did. He saw the brokenness, the raw wounds, the pain she usually hid in her eyes, saw the ledger she guarded close to her heart and knew. And he didn't kill her. Instead he offered her the one thing she wanted. And with it, so much more. He offered her escape and with it, the chance to atone, to do right, to clear her ledger of the red it carried. And Natalya Romanova for the first time in years trusted, and took her first chance at making her own life.

There was a lot of shouting when he came back with her in tow and for a moment Natalya wondered if she had exchanged one Red Room for another and prepared to bolt. But when she saw the eyes of the handler, saw the worry in it, and realized that most the anger in the man's voice was born out of worry for his agent, that she knew that nothing could be farther from the Red Room, where failure meant either death or torture by the hands of your own commander. So she didn't bolt. Instead she struggled, (yes struggled because Natalya Romanova did not strip herself bare for anyone, yet still she had to be honest), through the negotiations that had to be done to ensure that she wasn't a Trojan horse. It took a long time. But the man who had brought her in, stayed for as much as he could and when he wasn't there, his handler, a man she still couldn't understand yet knew was good, was there instead.

It was in her very last interview, before a decision was made concerning her entry into SHIELD, that she met him. The man who, although he couldn't be her handler, was to her what Phil Coulson was to Clint Barton. The man who taught her what she needed to know for her to make her own principles in her life. In short the man who taught her how to build the life Clint Barton had given back to her.

Natalya sat in the steel chair, her hands bound to the armrests by built in manacles and her legs similarly trapped so. They did not plan on making any mistakes with her and she was mildly flattered at this tribute to her talents but not pleased. She rested back in the chair and waited in the small, white room for someone to enter. When Nick Fury, director of SHIELD entered, she was faintly surprised. He walked in dropped a file on the table and collapsed on the chair opposite hers. He sat propped up in the chair and just watched her for a long time. Usually it wouldn't have been near long enough to make her uncomfortable or to fidget. She could stay perfectly still for hours if required. However after ten minutes Natalya began to feel uncomfortable. It was the way he was staring at her, she knew, because no one had ever looked at her like that before. It was not the way a man looks at an attractive woman, it was not the way someone would look at an enemy, not the way someone would watch at something disgusting or repulsive nor was it the way someone would look at a tool or an asset.

Finally Fury sat up straight pulled her file to him and opened it, thumbing through some of them. "Natalya Romanova, Russian born, Red Room operative, spy and assassin. You've been on our radar for quite some time, Miss Romanova. In fact you moved from potential threat to full out threat quite some time ago, which is why we dispensed Agent Barton to dispose of you. So imagine my surprise when his handler called back to say that Agent Barton had found you and instead made a different call from the one we sent him in to make. Needless to say, I was not pleased, because given your history I did not think what he had done was a very wise idea." Natalya stayed silent.

"However," continued Fury, "despite Agent Barton being a frequent pain in my rear, he is known for his very keen sight. So I was inclined to think that the call he made had something of sustenance." He stopped ad indicated the file he held. "Do you know what these are?"

"My file," Natalya replied.

"These are the reports of every single interview we put you through since you came here with Agent Barton. Do you know what is the common denominator with all of them?"

Natalya waited. He watched her, then he leaned forward and said, "None of them think you're telling the truth."

Natalya flinched on the inside. He looked her in the eyes and then leaned back in his chair.

"I am going to ask you a question," he said, face betraying no emotion now, "It's going to be the only question I am going ask you again today and I will not repeat it. Not today, not ever."

He waited and she nodded.

He pulled out some papers from the back of the file and pushed them over to her so she could see what it was. It was a contract for joining SHIELD. Then he leaned over, looked her in the eys again and tapped the papers with his finger.

"Do you really want this?"

And there were so many ways to interpret that question's meaning. She could still say yes and mean to kill every one of them. But at the same time, she knew that there was only one way he meant it and to her surprise; she saw he trusted her to answer the question that he had asked.

For all that Natalya didn't know when she realized that she wanted to leave Red Room; she certainly knew when she realized that she really wanted to join SHIELD. Perhaps it was the unexpected measure of trust, true trust, or perhaps it was that she had finally figured out how he had been looking at her. It had been the look of a Commander looking at his solider not only as an asset but also as a person. Nick Fury was a Commander who cared. And, strangely, for Natalya, that worked. It grounded her yet showed her the change to her life. And so she knew that as long as Nick Fury was director of SHIELD, she would want to be there.

She looked him in the eyes and said, "Yes."

He looked at her for a few seconds more and then nodded. He produced a key un-cuffed her hands and handed her a pen. Natalya took it, pulled the papers to her, read them, and then, hand shaking ever so slightly, despite her efforts to stop it, signed the papers.

Fury took the papers, looked at them, put them in his coat and then unlocked her feet himself, stood up and said, "Welcome to SHIELD Miss Romanova." And then swept out the door.

"Director," she said. When he paused and half- turned she said, "Why did you believe I told the truth when no one else did?"

There was a pause and then he turned to face her fully, "Because you lie far better than you speak the truth, Agent Romanova. You and I both know if you wanted them to believe you, they would have. But they didn't. And that made me think you weren't trying to sell a lie, Agent, you trying too hard to tell the truth."

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_**R&R please! Tell me if you all would like to read more. I love reviews, just saying.**_


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